NixOS Package Management

Finding Packages

Use the NixOS MCP server to search for packages:

• •Search by name or description
• •Check available versions with nix_versions
• •View package info including license and homepage

Evaluating Package Options

# Search for a package
nix search nixpkgs#<package-name>

# Show package metadata
nix eval nixpkgs#<package-name>.meta --json | jq

# Check if a package has overridable attributes
nix eval nixpkgs#<package-name>.override --json 2>&1

Building Custom Packages

When a package needs customization or isn't in nixpkgs:

1. •Create a directory: modules/home-manager/programs/pkgs/<name>/
2. •Write a default.nix with mkDerivation or appropriate builder
3. •Import it via an overlay or directly in the consuming module

Common Patterns

Package with overrides

(pkgs.somePackage.override {
  feature = true;
})

Package from flake input

inputs.some-flake.packages.${pkgs.stdenv.hostPlatform.system}.default

Broken packages

Comment out with a note:

# Broken build
# somePackage